CLEAN-UP - EVIDENCE ELIMINATORS... ANY GOOD?

[TRAVLINLOT]

Either my PC is starting to die of old age (a whole 3 years old now..:-(..guess that's old in PC years these days) or she's gummed up with a lot of junk that I can't get to - I'm not an expert but I do know enough to delete cookies/history and all that stuff - still extremely slugish. Anyone have any experience with the "clean-up" software applications that promise to remove "evidence", junk files and speed up your PC? If they are any good, any suggestions as to which one is better?

[+ deej]

3 years IS a little long in the tooth for a PC these days, but if you're running the version of Windows that came with the PC it shouldn't be a problem.

 

If you've installed and uninstsalled (or not) a bunch of software, it probably left some flotsam and jetsam in the registry, but that should only be an issue on startup. Utilities like Norton's System Works (or whatever it's called these days) can clean that up for you.

 

The evidence eliminators don't really get you much that you can't already do yourself. In addition to nuking history and temp files, and tossing your cookies, periodically nuke your \windows\temp directory. It piles up a ton of junk over time. Also, if you use MS Office, it DEFAULTS to making a backup copy of every document you save. Turn that feature off, and then use Explorer to erase all the backup copies.

 

You might also get some extra speed out of defragging your hard disk. They can get to be a mess over time.